On March 22, 2025, President Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum entitled “Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court”, which instructs the U.S. Department of Justice to seek professional sanctions against lawyers and law firms who litigate “against the United States or in matters before executive departments and agencies of the United States.” The Memorandum instructs the Attorney General to review litigation over the past eight years to retroactively include litigation during the previous Trump administration. In addition to professional sanctions, the Memorandum threatens the “reassessment of security clearances” and “termination of [] Federal contract[s].”
In response to this professional threat to law students, lawyers, clinical education, and to the integrity of the legal profession, the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and a network of law professors have created a Lawyer Support Project (“the Project”) to offer expert support to attorneys who face professional sanction pursuant to the Presidential Memorandum. The Project is also a vehicle for attorneys to report sanctions motions and disciplinary actions brought pursuant to the Memorandum. The legal profession and the public deserve to know the nature and extent of the threat, and future generations will want to understand its history.
The Project will identify expert resources available to lawyers facing sanctions motions or disciplinary action as a result of the Memorandum. In particular, the Project will identify professors willing to provide expert consultation and/or testimony regarding specific areas of law, expertise that targeted attorneys may need to defend against allegations of frivolous claims or otherwise unethical lawyering. We recognize that actions brought pursuant to the Memorandum will divert scarce resources away from substantive litigation; the Project aims to lighten the burden on targeted attorneys by sharing the existing expertise of the legal academy.
Attorneys facing potential sanctions in federal court or in a state disciplinary action pursuant to the March 22, 2025 Presidential Memorandum who are (1) willing to have their case catalogued by the Project, and/or (2) would like assistance from Project experts: please complete the confidential intake form. You will hear back from us within 48 hours.
Attorneys, legal academics, bar associations, law schools or law firms who would like to collaborate with or contribute to the Project, please contact us at [email protected].